Today, Bob asked:
What have we done against the ... peaceful Muslim people in Iraq that is so wrong that it should cause President Bush to be hated like this?
I answer:
- We invaded their country and continue to occupy it today;
- This invasion destroyed their government and resulted in a civil war;
- Our invasion and the resulting civil war have resulted in about a hundred thousand deaths of Iraqi civilians; and
- Our invasion and the resulting civil war have also resulted in over 4 million displaced Iraqis.
And Bob, no matter how many times you say it, the belligerents in the Iraqi Civil War are not "foreign terrorists" that the U.S. had to drive out. The belligerents are
overwhelmingly Iraqi nationals.
11 comments:
Blast from the past on Bob's talking points. He said if you're not supporting Bush, you're supporting the terrorists.
Perhaps he's still on vacation and took himself from 2004 to do the show for him.
BTW-Anyone know the song of his opening show? It was the only good part of his news hour.
Breaking my own promise, I post again on this blog. The Iraq body count figures are extremely conservative numbers, the Lancet Study had a figure in excess of 500,000 dead as a consequence of the invasion. I wanted to call in to the show yesterday when this inane discussion was underway but I'm at work during the show.
Mule:
Feel free to contribute anytime.
Sorry for going off on you the other day, Mule. Welcome back.
Mule,
I figured it would be best to use the most conservative estimate I could find, which is why I picked the Iraq Body Count estimate. I believe this estimate is based on purely civilian deaths which don't include Iraqi military or police deaths.
My long standing policy is to never call into Bob's show. I've heard how he treats people with an opposing point of view and it generally isn't fair or respectful. Plus, why should I help his show thrive? Once Bob starts posting here, maybe I'll consider a call now and then...
Welcome back, BTW.
The Iraq Body Count figures are very solid numbers, they are verified deaths, just wanted to point out that the figures are certainly going to be higher, in fact, much higher. The deaths from lack of clean water and medicine and proper nutrition have to be soaring. Thank you for the welcome back, I'll try to stay on topic. As for calling in, I just grit my teeth when he goes off like this, dying to lay into him because it has to be willful ignorance or willful malevolence that makes that man say some of the things he says, or some combination of the two.
If anyone wants to know why the Iraqi people might want to whack Bush upside the head with a shoe, a blog that could be added to your blogroll is Informed Comment by Prof. Juan Cole at the University of Michigan. Dr. Cole is fluent in Arabic, Farsi and Urdu and reads the Middle Eastern papers and is generally considered to be an expert on the Middle East. Just the headlines alone will make you realize why we're hated there now.
Due to Bob's abysmal understanding of history, he cannot grasp the disaster of Bush's use of the word, "crusade" to an world-wide audience shortly after 9/11.
That alone is enough to boost the recruiting effort of Al Queda.
I'm away from my resources now but hope to post more on this later.
Bob likes to blame all the US-hating, Bush-hating liberals and the media for encouraging ill-will in Iraq towards the US. Somehow born-again Bob overlooks our born-again president.
I one could be pleased at all, I indeed was to learn James Carroll, author of “Constantine’s Sword,” and a prominent Catholic theologian, fully agreed with my initial assessment of Bush’s use of the word “crusade” before a world-wide TV audience shortly after 9/11. Were I skilled with words I would have come up with “outrageous ineptitude.” But that’s why he get paid to write and I don’t.
In 2004 Carroll wrote: “I remember a momentary feeling of vertigo at the president’s use of the word, "crusade", the outrageous ineptitude of it. … Contrary to schoolboy romances, Hollywood fantasies and the nostalgia of royalty, the Crusades were a set of world-historic crimes. I hear the word with a third ear, alert to its dangers. Bush’s use of “crusade,” as it were conscripted my complete attention, and from that instant on I found myself an unwilling witness to the slow-motion wreck of American values that has occurred over last three years.”
Wow, that pretty much describes how I felt when I heard that, it was surreal, but it was a hint. This man and his junta intended to wage an endless war against the people of the Middle East (or anywhere else where there was light sweet crude beneath the ground). Slow-motion wreck? Well put!
Post a Comment